Harvard Law

If Baltimore native Leland Shelton had bothered to check his email in the hectic day before graduation, he might have avoided a shock during commencement. There he was, one of 500 men in a black cap and gown this week at Morehouse College in Atlanta, soaking up the words of the speaker — President Barack Obama — when the commander in chief called out his name. "Where's Leland?" Obama said, and Shelton's mouth went dry. "I was floored, I was momentarily paralyzed," the 21-year-old said.

If Baltimore native Leland Shelton had bothered to check his email in the hectic day before graduation, he might have avoided a shock during commencement. There he was, one of 500 men in a black cap and gown this week at Morehouse College in Atlanta, soaking up the words of the speaker — President Barack Obama — when the commander in chief called out his name. "Where's Leland?" Obama said, and Shelton's mouth went dry. "I was floored, I was momentarily paralyzed," the 21-year-old said.

A liberal political group is pushing Elizabeth Warren candidacy for the Senate now that President Obama has decided not to name her to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren dreamed up the idea of the new agency, but Republicans in Congress vehemently oppose her and the bureau. Progressive Change Campaign Committee has been trying to get signatures and donations for the Harvard law professor's potential race to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. The “Draft Elizabeth Warren” campaign has so far raised $45,300 and collected 25,548 signatures.

President Obama has the talent to say things that are demonstrably false and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring. When asked a couple of weeks ago whether he thought the Supreme Court would uphold ObamaCare as constitutional or strike it down as unconstitutional he replied: "I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of...

Apparently, one pretend investigation (into Obama's birth certificate) isn't enough for Donald Trump. He now claims he is "looking into" how President Barack Obama was accepted to Ivy League schools Columbia and Harvard despite being a "terrible" student.   "I heard he was a terrible student, terrible," Trump said today i n an interview with The Associated Press . "How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard? I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.

EARLY LIFE BIRACIAL BACKGROUND: Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Aug. 4, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was a student from Kenya who herded goats as a child. His mother, Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kan., was a student at the University of Hawaii and the daughter of a furniture salesman, She married Obama Sr. unaware that he was already married to a woman in Kenya, with whom he had two children. Two years later, the couple divorced. TO INDONESIA: Dunham married an Indonesian student named Lolo Soetero, and in 1967, when Barack was 6, the family moved to Jakarta.

The University of Maryland law school has chosen Donald G. Gifford, the head of West Virginia's law school, to be its new dean, according to several sources.Mr. Gifford, 39, has been dean of the West Virginia law school since August 1989 and is credited with increasing private contributions and strengthening the school's minority student recruitment program.He would replace Michael Kelly, who resigned last July, after 17 years as dean, to become a vice president of Georgetown University .Mr. Gifford was expected to be in Baltimore today for an official announcement.

President Obama has the talent to say things that are demonstrably false and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring. When asked a couple of weeks ago whether he thought the Supreme Court would uphold ObamaCare as constitutional or strike it down as unconstitutional he replied: "I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of...

This is definitely going to be the year of the hourlong drama on network television.By the end of next month, when the new fall schedules are in place, there will be a record number of such series on the air. Fox debuts its best and brightest tonight with "Ally McBeal," from producer David E. Kelley."

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A young, professional woman goes to the big city and has considerable success on the job. But she feels her personal life is empty. So, she leaves the fancy office in the big city and returns to her smaller hometown on the East Coast. She even moves back into the house in which she was raised as she pursues a less corporate, more community-oriented job in her profession. That's the story line for last year's surprise midseason hit from NBC, "Providence," with Melina Kanakaredes, as Dr. Sydney Hansen, leaving the ritz and glitz of her Beverly Hills plastic surgery practice to return to Rhode Island and general practice in a community clinic.

A liberal political group is pushing Elizabeth Warren candidacy for the Senate now that President Obama has decided not to name her to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren dreamed up the idea of the new agency, but Republicans in Congress vehemently oppose her and the bureau. Progressive Change Campaign Committee has been trying to get signatures and donations for the Harvard law professor's potential race to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. The “Draft Elizabeth Warren” campaign has so far raised $45,300 and collected 25,548 signatures.

Not too many of Adam Braskich's classmates at Harvard Law School this fall will have spent an afternoon quite like this. On a sweltering day inside a South Baltimore apartment, he stood over the body of an elderly man that was discovered by a friend. Trying to discern the man's identity and find his family, the officer and a medic picked through his possessions, looking for anything that might help. Another medic rushed out, overcome by the stench. Braskich, a 26-year-old native of Illinois who double-majored in criminal justice and philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park, said he's enjoyed the past three years in the city's diverse neighborhoods, getting to know residents and drug dealers alike.

Apparently, one pretend investigation (into Obama's birth certificate) isn't enough for Donald Trump. He now claims he is "looking into" how President Barack Obama was accepted to Ivy League schools Columbia and Harvard despite being a "terrible" student.   "I heard he was a terrible student, terrible," Trump said today i n an interview with The Associated Press . "How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard? I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.

EARLY LIFE BIRACIAL BACKGROUND: Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Aug. 4, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was a student from Kenya who herded goats as a child. His mother, Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kan., was a student at the University of Hawaii and the daughter of a furniture salesman, She married Obama Sr. unaware that he was already married to a woman in Kenya, with whom he had two children. Two years later, the couple divorced. TO INDONESIA: Dunham married an Indonesian student named Lolo Soetero, and in 1967, when Barack was 6, the family moved to Jakarta.

Pauli Murray, a Baltimorean, made history in 1977, when she was ordained the Episcopal Church's first African-American female priest during services held in Washington. The year of her ordination, she connected with her personal past when she celebrated her first Holy Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross on the University of North Carolina campus, where her grandmother, a slave, had been baptized 122 years earlier. She brought with her two items that day. She had a purple ribbon from a box of flowers that Eleanor Roosevelt had sent to her years, and she carried her grandmother's worn Bible.

LARRY GIBSON, Baltimore attorney and University of Maryland School of Law professor, had turned into a veritable dynamo. There he was, nudging his way through the crowd on the first floor of the law school on West Baltimore Street. He had no sooner finished chatting up one person than he was darting somewhere else. At times he was on the second floor - where the exhibit's panels, containing photographs, biographical sketches and newspaper clippings, were to be unveiled - peering down into the throng.

Pauli Murray, a Baltimorean, made history in 1977, when she was ordained the Episcopal Church's first African-American female priest during services held in Washington. The year of her ordination, she connected with her personal past when she celebrated her first Holy Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross on the University of North Carolina campus, where her grandmother, a slave, had been baptized 122 years earlier. She brought with her two items that day. She had a purple ribbon from a box of flowers that Eleanor Roosevelt had sent to her years, and she carried her grandmother's worn Bible.

LARRY GIBSON, Baltimore attorney and University of Maryland School of Law professor, had turned into a veritable dynamo. There he was, nudging his way through the crowd on the first floor of the law school on West Baltimore Street. He had no sooner finished chatting up one person than he was darting somewhere else. At times he was on the second floor - where the exhibit's panels, containing photographs, biographical sketches and newspaper clippings, were to be unveiled - peering down into the throng.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A young, professional woman goes to the big city and has considerable success on the job. But she feels her personal life is empty. So, she leaves the fancy office in the big city and returns to her smaller hometown on the East Coast. She even moves back into the house in which she was raised as she pursues a less corporate, more community-oriented job in her profession. That's the story line for last year's surprise midseason hit from NBC, "Providence," with Melina Kanakaredes, as Dr. Sydney Hansen, leaving the ritz and glitz of her Beverly Hills plastic surgery practice to return to Rhode Island and general practice in a community clinic.

AT THE 40th reunion of Harvard Law School's class of 1958, held on a recent weekend in Boston, the expected displays of conventional success were on full and gilded view. These were senior partners at major corporate law firms, federal judges, old-hand loophole lawyers and fixers, and the settled and secure usually found in the novels of Louis Auchincloss.That would have been it, except that this group had a collective achievement that went well beyond the soarings of any individual alumnus.